News & Information for Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts

Main menu

Search form

You are here

Slcilian Loaves, Breakfast Tart, Faster Pizza's Wood Fired Baked

August 8, 2011 - 12:40pm

SylviaH

Slcilian Loaves, Breakfast Tart, Faster Pizza's Wood Fired Baked

I baked Sicilian Semolina Bread from D T. DiMuzio's book 'breadbaking' tweaking the formula and fermentation of the biga to adjust to my time schdule for wfo baking. I also made a fresh peach and blueberry Breakfast Tart with a Pate A Foncer crust and Almond Cream from M. Suas AB&P book with some tweaks again with ingredients and for wfo baking. The pizza's where Margherita pizza and a fresh homemade pesto sauce and shrimp pizza. I baked the pizza's in a very hot oven. When baking pizza fast apx. 2min. pizza you need to have the fire just right along with right floor temperature of the oven. If the pizza is charing to much on the bottom before the top is done. You need to make the fire larger and hotter, you would think the opposite. The pizza needs a larger flame and more heat coming from the top of the oven so the bottom and the top will bake evenly. Building a larger fire speeds the top baking up to create an evenly baked top and bottom of a pizza pie. This fire is rolling over creating a convection flow of heat. That is why the fire is placed to the side of the oven dome. You don't want the heat to come out your door or up your chimney flue.

I started with a very hot oven and still had plenty of hot coals to shovel out and set the oven for stabilizing the heat for baking. I started later in the day. So I would be making my pizza's when it was a cooler outside. Building the fire goes quick for me now and I only have to add a log about every 15 to 25 minutes until I'm ready to bake.

More to come... my husband is rushing me out the door for an appt. we have. Sylvia

ADDED: Oven floor temperature at the red lazer dot, between pizza and fire.

Never add logs while food is in the oven, unless you want a little ash on top of your food.

I didn't expect the oven spring I got and it blew out my scroll shape. Photos were taken in todays morning light.

I was happy with the bottom crust color. Photo taken under night kitchen lights so things look a little yellow.

The Crumb Shot - I hope for a more open crumb my next go at this wfo baking!

I was very pleased with the way tart baked up in the oven as it cooled down somewhat from the bread baking. The floor of the oven should be somewhere about 500F for the breads. All coals removed and oven heat stablized..takes about a hour maybe a little longer, depending on how hot and long the oven is fired. I had plenty of good hot coals spread all over the floor and then removed for stablizing time.

Now the Tart is baking.. forgot about using a flash...but the lazer lit up

I was very pleased with the Tart and it was absolutely delicious for a morning Breakfast Tart! I added a little sprinkled on turbinado sugar and it was just right for this 'not to sweet' tart with it's fresh sweet fruit. It can be garnished many ways. Tonight it will be served with homemade ice cream!

Out of the tart pan. I was happy the crust wasn't to overly prebaked.

This mornings breakfast, sorry about the big bite out, couldn't help myself. It really was a delicious tart. I prepared all the ingredients the evening before to make things a lot easier bake day. I think making a natural sourdough bread that is shaped and has a final proof in the my frig overnight is a lot easier than making a bread with a commerical yeast the day of firing up the oven and baking...at least there is a lot less work and timing involved for me IMHO.

It all looks great Sylvia but the Sicilian loaves really catch my eye from the photos so far. No kidding great oven spring! Somehow I missed that recipe in DiMuzio's book but it looks like one I'll try at some point because of the 40% durum content. That's more than enough for the durum flavour to contribute it's particular flavour and colour, but done in a WFO I'm sure it'll be that much better for the overall taste. I like your little buddy too :^) Does he ever get a sample? Looking forward to more photos and writeup Sylvia.

The flavor of the durum comes through great and I imagine it would be just as nice with the semolina fine grind. I baked this bread before and posted it HERE..much better looking scrolls! The 40% durum is not to dear amount to take from my stockpile 'lol'..seriously the bread is delicious. Baked in a wfo oven..since all coals are removed I don't think it really makes a flavor difference that distinguishable...the crust is very hard when bread first comes out my wfo and then softens. No steam was applied other than the spritz for the seeds and just a light one before going into the oven.

That little guy in the tree is so helpless and just looks at you. You want to reach over and pet him. He won't budge with a broom handle to go back home...but a spritz with the water bottle I found works, somewhat. He makes my dogs nuts..there's another that comes sometimes, if it's still living. They walk the whole way around everyone's backyard on the fence, but like it under my tree at night, we all have to same back fence in our association. I think he likes my fig tree.

Thanks for you comments, they are always appreciated!

Sylvia

ADDED: having trouble with the link..just type in Sicilian Semolina in search.

Hello Sylvia,Beautiful crusts all - pizza, tart and bread! It is most enjoyable seeing pictures of and reading about how you run the oven.I so admire your knowledge and success with WFO baking - should there ever be a "Sylvia's WFO Cooking School" I'd sign up for classes in a heartbeat!:^) from breadsong

I'm still learning a lot about my oven. So far mostly pizza's made in it and having fun learning about all the things that can be done with that cooling oven overnight...dry herbs, pot of beans, even maybe some dried dead dough sculptures..a lot to try. I'll forever be going to school with my oven 'lol'.

I'm pleased your not tired of looking at my pizza's. I very much enjoy making and posting them. I was lucky to get some shots of the pizza's..we eat them as they come out of the oven and Mike was hungry.

I love the way you have laid out the post with photos of the products in the oven and corresponding detail on the laser thermometer; so informative. It gives a real taste of what baking on a wood-fired oven is really all about.

I'm glad you were pleased with my post. Your an inspiration, Andy : ) Today was one of those rushing around in and out days and I posted things rather quickly. I'm glad they it was understood : ) I'll be going out of town the end of this week, for a little holiday, so I had to get a good fix of baking in before I leave.

Just out of curosity - what was the temp. while the breads were baking? I saw the temps. for the pizza and the tart but not for the bread. It looks so nice! And the thought of having the heat outdoors instead of in my kitchen this time of year......hotter in my house at times than out due to baking.....one would think I would stop....NO WAY to many formulas waiting to be baked :-)

Thank you for your comments and I'm very happy to answer any of your wfo questions to my best.

The wfo baking environment is unique. It relies on a radiant heat source from the dome and a conductive heat from the floor, when it has been swept clean or any fire and coals. You can figure on the oven loosing about 50F while you prepare it for baking.

A good floor temperature after the oven has been regulated or I also call it stabilized is around 450-550F and then lower as you get into enriched doughs and pastries. You would bake things first like baguettes, ciabatta's, are great just after finishing up some pizza's and the oven it hot and stabilized. The dome of the oven has gone from black to white. That's how you know it's ready, for any pizza's or baking. The dome and walls are no longer black as in the beginning. Each time you open the door, check the floor temperature after placing the door back on for at least 10 minutes, so the oven can draw on more of it's stored heat. It nice the oven is not like an indoor oven and requires heating up again to replace lost heat. It quickly puts back the stored heat that has been lost after opening the door.

ADDED: It's good to know you can also bake foccacia's and some breads are delicious with the fire and coals in the oven..it gives them a delicious flavor, much like a pizza and they love the heat. There are different areas in your oven for heat. Closer to walls will brown bread on that side in that area quicker. The center of the oven is probably the coolest area other than right next to the door. Bake oven floor temperature for pastries is good around 350 to 450F.

Remember the door is off when I was taking the temperature so the oven is actually hotter, when the door is placed back on.

That is really interesting about the temps and learning how to read your oven. I am thinking if I had one I would feel compelled to prepare a lot of items to be baked so as not to let all that wonderful heat go to waste....My kids would really never see me LOL.

Your learning process sounds very much like the learning curve I went through when I began burning wood for heat in our home. I had a Jotul insert installed and had to learn fire building from scratch as they are very different from burning in an open fireplace. (I learned quite quickly that wood isn't 'dry' if it hasn't been cut and stacked for at least a year. Lots of wasted energy and $$$ going up in steam....) Like you learning how to bake in your WFO compared to you kitchen oven.....

I am very familiar with the brick color change....it is one of my gauges too as to how hot and clean I am burning. I love my IR and seeing the temps in the 700°'s on really cold winter days here.

Thanks for the explanation....You are working with two of the things I love the most! Wood and bread :-) I imagine all the breads and goodies come out tasting wonderful due to the wood....just like the heat in my home feels wonderful when it comes from wood...

That is challenging and fun. With lots of family around they might like to pitch in and really put out some food, maybe a weeks baking and cooking in one day.

The wood burning heat sounds wonderful. I don't have any experience with type of heating system.

I help my wood dry out by placing it into the oven after I'm done baking. Or even the next day helps. I also had an experience with unseasoned wood :-/

It really does bother me that all those great hot coals that are shoveled out before bread baking....just yesterday I felt compelled to ask neighbors..would they like some hot wood coals for bar-b-que 'lol'. I chuckled to myself, they probably would think I had lost it. You know like the people that don't understand why we love to bake so much ;)

I do have a grill that slides into my oven and you just push some coals under to grill. The coals that get shoveled out just go into a can if there's only a small amount. A large amount, like this bake used, goes nicely right into a small portable grill on wheels..comes in handy for holding the coals..or even later if there is extra grilling on coals to be done.

I find there is truth to the saying 'experience is the best teacher'.....

I hate the waste of all the energy too. Buckminster Fuller described the burning of wood as 'sunlight unwinding' - all the stored energy from the sun in the form of a tree that we cut and then burn...

If you burn the coals down to ashes the ashes make great fertilizer! Just make sure they are completely COLD - like at least a week of sitting in a metal trash can with the lid on tight....summer might need longer. In the winter I scoop my COLD ashes out an spread them all around my lawn and garden. A thin layer is all that is needed as too much has the opposite effect...it will kill what you put it on....can be used for a weedy area.

Sometimes I have a very, very small scoop of hot coals left and want them removed from the oven, so I just put them into a bucket of water, that is always kept beside the fired oven for mopping, ect...it seemed harmless enough, usually they are just left in to turn to cold ash. It worked fine, put out the little hot coals and then I buried them in the soil..a few days later, rather than putting them into the ash bucket. I have an ash bucket with lid, for cleaning cold ash from the wfo and, I also use my portable grill if moving hot coals out of the oven, they stay there until cold and then into the ash bucket. So far no hot ash bad encounters. Or burns. I try to be extra careful. I'm working around an oven that easily reaches over a 1000F. I have 3 little dogs running around and one is a jack russell...he will eat anything..so nothing goes on the ground hot..my portable grill on wheels was a good investment..lid, ash pan and wheels right over to the oven door for removing the hot ash and coal then away and out of reach till it turns to ash.

I really love designing my own tarts, usually while filling and using some good sound formula's.

These little guys started visiting about 5 years ago. I think they survive pretty good around back of my house, the open area at the back of the house is large but is surrounded by a loop of homes..not to many large preditors come in the loop and the coyotes have plenty to eat elsewhere, on the otherside of the road behind homes is all open range.

All original site content copyright 2017 The Fresh Loaf unless stated otherwise. Content posted by community members is their own. The Fresh Loaf is not responsible for community member content. If you see anything inappropriate on the site or have any questions, contact me at floydm at thefreshloaf dot com. This site is powered by Drupal and Mollom.